Supreme Court Strikes Down First Phase Of EPA’s Global Warming Agenda
By Michael Bastasch
DailyCaller.com
June 23, 2014
The Supreme Court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon dioxide permitting scheme for power plants and other large facilities, saying the agency exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA has been requiring facilities emitting more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year to get permits. The agency, however, had to “tailor” the rule to accommodate regulating carbon dioxide emitting facilities under the Clean Air Act.
“We hold that EPA exceeded its statutory authority when it interpreted the Clean Air Act to require… permitting for stationary sources based on their greenhouse-gas emissions,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion.
“Specifically, the Agency may not treat greenhouse gases as a pollutant for purposes of defining a ‘major emitting facility’ … in the [permitting] context or a ‘major source’” Scalia wrote. “To the extent its regulations purport to do so, they are invalid.”
The decision was welcomed by power companies as well as the oil and gas industry because the rules also extended to refineries and other large manufacturing facilities.
“Today’s decision will help to ensure that permitting requirements fall within the authority granted by Congress,” said Harry Ng, vice president and general counsel at the American Petroleum Institute.
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